Listen (Breathe Deep, You're Losing It)
by GideonGraystairs
Summary: He loves him in the same way a drug addict loves sobriety - Magnus is beautiful and perfect and ideal, but wholly unattainable and resultantly destructive. Or maybe Alec is the destructive one, tearing himself to shreds so he never has to see the awful picture his pieces form.
1. AXIS (Earth)

**Maybe You're The Axis (And I'm The Dying Earth)**

* * *

Sometimes, you look at me and I see galaxies

of the words you don't say,

like they're caught in your breath, your lungs, and they can't escape.

I can't escape either, you know.

Sometimes,

I see stars exploding into nebulae

and I feel myself flying apart right along with them.

Sometimes,

I see oceans crashing over cliffsides

and I feel my heart copying the motion.

Sometimes,

I just see you.

.

You stretch like a cat in the sun and I watch your tan skin glide

over smooth muscles I so long to touch,

like a temptation, a test, and I know I'm going to fail.

I feel

like a dying star, a rising tide, a horse galloping without a herd.

And it's funny because I know,

 _I know_ ,

you can't feel the way my heart

beats and thumps and grinds to stops

every time

your eyes and mine lock across the room.

.

The words echo in the right half of my brain,

sirens sounding that I wish I hadn't heard.

The left tells me

 **Stop**.

 _Don't you know what it'd do?_

But the words, they're like nails on chalkboards

scratching at my tongue and

I want so bad to spit them out, _I love you_ , but I know,

 _I know_ ,

it would make your galaxies implode.

Tiny tears in the fabrics of your planets, peeking at the other side

where it's dark, not a light in the sky, and I don't want to see that,

I don't,

but maybe there's a part of me that really does.

Maybe there's a part of me that's hoping wild, desperate

that your skies will be the same shade of blue as my eyes.

.

Sometimes, you look at me and I see galaxies.

There's words in them you don't say

because they're trapped on your tongue

and you can't escape if you try.

Sometimes,

I see _beatbeatthump_ like the pounding of a drum.

Sometimes,

I see wild horses rampaging through the ocean and I feel

like I'm cliff-diving off the edge.

Sometimes,

I just see you.

And this, I think,

is true in every way I can't seem to bring myself to say.

* * *

These days I feel

like the whole planet is against me,

laughing in my face as I scribble through my goals.

 _Tell Magnus,_ one says.

It disappears in a cloud of red.

 _Stop,_ is the next.

This one, I trace in gold to counter

the silver lightning cracked across my wrists.

 _Re-start,_ I read.

Blue eyes shoot to a dust-soaked guitar,

withering away in the unlit corner. Black pen

scratches white paper.

I breathe.

Another year, I think,

another left to fear.

 **.**

I don't write them for next year,

though I have the notepad there.

It feels too sad, too reminiscent

of everything I've always known I won't achieve.

No goals, no failures,

sounds so much simpler to me.

No chance of letdowns, lost dreams,

and maybe this time, I won't feel my seams tear apart.

 **.**

You knock, ringing and clear,

confident in everything you've ever thought to do.

I think

of not answering, like you'll go away if I don't,

but I miss your colour too much to deny myself

the sight.

Door open, you step inside, and I'm sure you'll say

I look like I've already died and maybe this time

I'll tell you the truth that I have.

This time, you don't.

One look, I know.

This isn't the you who paints with the sun or basks in living

wild moment to wild moment.

 **.**

 _"Alec,"_ you say,

as if I don't know my own name.

My heart

stops, thuds, thunders, beats.

The world

spins, races, falls from beneath my feet.

There's more in your eyes, conversations

I don't know how to have. I look,

but all I see is lightning

and red pen.

 **.**

 _"Magnus,"_ I reply,

your name so much more meaningful than mine.

Galaxies, stars collide, the world tips over onto its side.

I know you see the lightning, too.

Red pen across my heart and

black breaths into the dark, skies

ripping to shreds and music still stuck in my head.

You've always seen it, haven't you?

 **.**

Gold-green drip waterfalls of silent

screams, echoing through the soundless room.

I want so bad to tell you, truths sparking at my tongue,

but there's iron bars pierced through my lips and I

can't wrestle them open.

Your breaths sound like a burning galaxy and maybe

the words aren't sparking at my tongue,

but my eyes and maybe

you can read them plain as day because

 _I love you,_

and if you can't you'll never know.

 _I'm drowning,_

and if you can't I'm going to let go.

 **.**

You breathe and the water

crashes away from my shores. I'm left

sputtering in the sand,

choking for breath, trying to spew out the poison

in my lungs.

I don't know what to say,

you've always spoken for the both of us and maybe

that's the problem.

My words are in your throat and I can't

take them back.

I want them back.

I don't know what to say.

 **.**

 _"What's going on?"_ you demand.

The question is a noose in the air between us

for me to either hang myself with

or pull myself up.

I don't know how to hold on tight enough.

I don't have the strength

to lift myself

or the will

to wrap it round my neck.

These days, I'm so tired every step feels like

a marathon.

I wonder if you notice, but your eyes are made of magnifying glass

and I know that you do.

 **.**

 _"Nothing."_

Nothing is going on, I tell you.

It burns through my tongue,

a poison more vicious than the water

in my lungs.

I know you don't believe me because I

am a canvas

and you know how to paint.

Because I

am made of red pen and lightning

and you know how to read.

 **.**

You've asked me not to lie to you many times before.

This time, it is not a question. It is

an accusation.

 _This,_ it says, _is the part where you must choose_

 _to either tell the truth_

 _or bury the dagger in your heart and twist until you bleed_

 _to death._

The truth is an ocean, vast and uncertain,

and I do not want to be crushed

when the water hits the rocks.

 **.**

 _I'm sorry,_ I try to say with my eyes.

I'm not sure what for.

I'm not sorry

for loving you, you are the constellations

that spill across my navy skies.

I'm not sorry

for hating myself, I am the springboard

for others to propel themselves off of.

I'm not sorry

for the lightning, it is the road map

to show me where I've been.

 **.**

Maybe I'm just sorry because I know

you don't understand,

you can't.

And I wish you heard the horses

crashing through the tide.

 **.**

 _"Talk to me,"_ you say and I want to scream

 _I am!_

but you can't see the cliff-side

I'm perched upon.

So instead I say, " _I can't,"_

and it's the closest I've ever come

to the truth.

 **.**

My name feels too much like a promise from your mouth

and I don't want to break it.

But the way you're looking at me is too much

like I'm the painting you tore apart

just last week.

I don't want to be the wrong colours, wrong shapes, or

the wrong sets of brush strokes,

that make you scream in frustration because you

can't get it right.

I don't want to be the painting you

can't stand to look at.

 **.**

The birds in my sky swoop towards the ground,

a suicide dive,

and I lean up to grasp your lapels because I want

to shake you into understanding

everything my voice takes for silence.

I also want to kiss you, but my lips

are made of lightning, too, and I

don't want to burn you.

Instead,

I feel the waterfalls moving

from your eyes to mine and it stings

where they scorch right through my skin.

 **.**

I don't say anything.

Maybe that says enough.

 **.**

You're looking at me like the sun looks at the moon,

careful, longing, desperate.

I want to tell you to look harder,

to love me,

but I don't think that would be fair.

.

And then the ocean crashes right onto the cliffs

and the wild horses drown.

The sky is torn to shreds

and I can see the hidden dark.

 **.**

You're closer than you've ever been,

except when we were drunk that time

that we don't talk about.

There's a breath between us that I want

to inhale,

but instead you do it for me.

 **.**

A plea on your lips, not sure what for,

and your stars in my galaxy as the wall over my heart

rips to pieces of thin shredded paper,

fluttering down around us like silver-gold snow.

You know,

it looks a lot like the lightning, too.

* * *

We've never been good at the word thing.

And it's funny because

I always thought you were the best at it.

I thought you took both our words and

shoved them down your throat and

spewed them out at perfect times just because you could.

Now I know you spew out thorns

and hold the roses in your heart.

 **.**

Neither of us know the words we don't say

and it leaves us choking

on silence.

I almost want to kiss you again,

just so I can take your air where I

can't find my own.

I almost want to strangle you,

just so we can stop breathing

together.

Silence is a monster,

taloned with wings that stretch high above its vicious head,

stalking towards us with dreaded velocity.

 **.**

Hours stretch into days like a cat rising from its slumber

and my door ends up closing with a click.

Yours stays open, like you're hoping I'll come in

and tell you everything I didn't then.

Mine is a barrier to ward you away

because I don't want you

to tell me you don't want me.

 **.**

Your friends ask why they don't see me,

if maybe I'm not home.

I hear you tell them I'm tired, I'm resting, I'm studying.

They're not lies.

I'm tired

of doors between us and things we don't talk about

like getting drunk and hooking up or when you came into my room and kissed me.

I'm resting

between moments like those where the horses drown

because they need time to learn to breath again before the noose comes back.

I'm studying

everything I've ever known about you

trying to find answers to questions I have no idea how to ask.

Do you like me?

Do you love me?

Am I just a warm body with a mind formed of frostbite?

Do you even know me at all?

 **.**

The questions are anchors

they drag me

deeper into the poisonous water and closer to you

all at once.

I'm not sure

whether to cut the ropes and swim to shore

or let them pull me down.

In some ways,

I think it might be harder just to drown.

 **.**

 _"Magnus,"_ I say,

your room stretches around us like the one in that game

where its door won't open

until I've completed my task.

Eyes like wild grass on a sunny day,

you look at me and I feel

like maybe drowning was the better idea.

It's too late to tie the rope back together now, though,

I'd have to swim all the way

to the bottom just

to grab the other end.

 **.**

 _"Do you hate me?"_

 _._

You blink

like I've just asked something shocking.

I don't think it's shocking.

I think it's fair.

How could I have ever thought you loved me

when I can't even love myself?

It's logical, true, and the left side of my brain affirms this.

The right one screams,

 ** _Idiot!_**

but I ignore it.

 **.**

 _"How―"_ the words get stuck,

bile in your throat you can't swallow down.

I know the feeling.

 _"How could you think that?"_

and I watch your hands flutter as you rise off the bed

like they're butterflies searching for landing

or answers looking for questions.

 **.**

 _How could I not?_ I want to say,

but I think

that would upset the butterflies.

Instead, I say,

 _"Why shouldn't I?"_ and try to make it angry.

I don't like angry enough to be good at it, though,

so it ends up sounding like rain

dripping through a window.

 **.**

There are a thousand reasons screaming in your eyes

and I want you to say every one of them.

Instead, you say,

 _"Oh, Alec,"_ and it comes out kind of sad.

I wonder if it's the purple

on my shoulder

or the pink

on my wrist.

 **.**

Boiling lava spills into my heart and I almost spew it out,

a volcano of hurt feelings and frustration,

but I don't like angry

so I swallow it down even though

it burns at my throat.

I don't like the rain pounding at my eyes, either,

so I close them to keep it away,

shutting the windows to stop it

from dripping into my home.

 **.**

I'm waiting for you to say it.

I know you know the words.

It's a song we've both had stuck inside

our heads for so long the lyrics

have invaded even our dreams.

Only we're both too unsure of our voices

to ever belt them out loud.

This time, though,

I can see the words fluttering through your butterfly hands

and I don't know what to do

to coax them from your grip.

 **.**

This time I'm the one pleading,

not sure what for.

Maybe for you to just pull the trigger already,

the gun's been pressed to my temple long enough,

and kill me so we can be done with all of this.

Or maybe just kill me so I can be dead.

Or maybe I'm pleading for you

to bring your stars

back to my galaxy.

The skies have been so empty without them.

 **.**

 _"I―"_ you say.

Almost, but not.

The birds are swooping to the ground again,

another suicide dive,

and I'm not sure you'll be able to stop them

this time.

Screams on my lips and sobs in my heart,

I want to stab the truth through your chest

and force it out your throat.

 **.**

 _"I love you."_

 **.**

My laugh is like the arc,

full of howling animals gone insane.

Your swallow is like the ocean,

washing it away.

 **.**

 _"I love you, too."_

I think it's funny how this time

when your stars crash into my galaxies,

they don't rip anything

to shreds.

* * *

Everything is black and red.

The sky is black,

the bricks are red.

They're dressed in black,

I'm stained with red.

The ground is black,

my blood is red.

 **.**

My screams are no colour at all.

They are silent,

unheard,

and stab knives into my head.

My sobs have no colour, either.

They are silent,

unheard,

and burn holes through my body.

 **.**

 _Breathing is forgettable._

I didn't know that until now.

 _Nightmares are real._

I didn't know that, either.


	2. CITY (Bricks)

**Maybe You're The City (And I'm The Crumbling Bricks)**

* * *

Sometimes, I look at you and I see hands

clawing off my skin and my dignity

all at once,

like I'm the landscape they're reshaping.

I still haven't grown back the flowers.

Sometimes,

I see red streaked across the concrete

and I feel myself giving up.

Sometimes,

I hear words whispered in my ear

and I feel myself tearing to shreds.

Sometimes,

I just see them.

 **.**

They tear through my dreams, my nightmares,

and I wake

screaming for them to let me go, even though

I know they won't listen.

They never have faces.

They never have names.

They are monsters of memories I can't escape

and the bars on this cage

are made of ivory innocence.

I want you to let me out,

sometimes,

toss me the key or smash down the walls, but

I don't want you to see

what's trapped in here with me.

 **.**

You run your hands across my skin and tell me

you don't mind the lightning because it

speaks the truth.

I want to tell you not to touch me,

I can't see you when you do,

but I don't want to have to tell you

who I see instead.

 **.**

I was always afraid of this,

you know.

I didn't want to kiss you or tell you how I felt

and have it change the way you saw me.

I am made of lightning

and I am made of cages.

There are stories in the thunder

and a beast behind the bars.

Neither are things I want you to know.

 **.**

You whisper my name like a ghost and I wonder

if that's what I'm going to become.

I whisper yours like a cure and I hope

that's what it will be.

I shouldn't, I know that, but the pills

don't take the memories,

just the feelings,

and I'd rather they did the opposite.

 **.**

I don't want to hate it

when you run your fingers down my spine.

I don't want to tremble

when you breathe against my ear.

I don't want to worry

if you'll hate me when the lightning

flashes red instead.

I just want to love you.

And I wish,

 _God, I wish,_

that were enough to make it true.

 **.**

Sometimes, I look at you and I see flowers

blooming in an open field,

like you can grow them for me and gift them when you're done.

Sometimes,

I see red streaked across the concrete

and I wish you could clean it with a wave of your hand.

Sometimes,

I hear words whispered in my ear

and I wish you could drown out the sound.

Sometimes,

I wish I could just see you.

* * *

There are days where I think you might know.

Like you can see the bruises

that have faded from my skin,

or the peppering of scabs

that have healed off my back.

There are days where I wish you knew.

Like when you ask me

why I freak when you touch me

or never take any shortcuts.

 **.**

I wish I could tell you.

Or I wish you could remember _before_

and hold onto it for me because

I can't do it myself.

I wish I could let you love me

like I wanted you to for so long,

but it's too fresh, too painful

and I know you're going to leave.

I don't want you to leave.

 **.**

Sometimes I'll open my mouth and I'll say

" _I need to tell you something_ ,"

but the courage always goes away the moment

you turn to face me and instead

I say, " _Never mind,_ "

because I know that you will.

I know you'll want to kill them

and love me even sweeter

and I know you'll want to kill yourself

because I do.

I always have.

I'll never tell you that, either.

 **.**

I liked the way we started, you know.

I liked the lightning and the galaxies and the horses

and I want to go back to the silver-gold snow.

I liked it when you told me you'd always felt the same,

you just hadn't understood

my screams for you to love me.

I liked it when I told you I'd loved you from the start,

before we got drunk and desperate

and suddenly the distance

was building a brick wall between us.

I liked it when you told me you felt awful about that

because you thought

I hated you for it

and I told you I was mad at myself

because I thought

you hated me, too.

 **.**

I liked the start when we were happy,

or the closest I could be,

and you built me a lightning rod

to keep it far away from me.

I liked it when you told jokes and I laughed and

you kissed me for the second time

just outside my economics class.

I liked the start when we didn't even know each other and

I saw you for the first time

and thought you were an angel.

I liked it when you loved me and I loved you and maybe it was painful

but it was simple,

too.

I liked it when you loved me and I loved you and the only thing that hurt

was thinking you didn't feel

the same.

 **.**

I think I should've realized

it would hurt more when I knew

that you did.

 **.**

There are days where I wonder if you'll ask

why I didn't come home that one night

until five in the morning

and you didn't see me for two days after

because I was locked inside my room.

There are days where I wish that you will,

so I can tell you about the bruises and the scabs

that I never let you see.

I want to hear you tell me

 _It wasn't my fault._

but I want to be able

to believe you if you do.

* * *

The phone is in your hands,

cord stretched long but not enough

to hang me with,

and I can hear your muffled sobs

down the line to my sister

(or maybe it's my mother).

 **.**

You tell them how the lightning is no longer focused whips,

but trees growing all across my body

barely an inch untouched by their branches.

You tell them how there's red pen

blocking out what makes me myself.

 **.**

I want to tell you to stop.

I want to tell you I'm trying.

I want to tell you the truth.

I want to tell you I love you and it's enough but the truth is

it isn't.

Love is not a cure for shattered bone or an ailing mind,

it is only a buffer

to block out the pain

until it's gone and you're left with a wound a thousand times deeper

because you forgot to let it heal.

 **.**

" _Please come visit,_ " you say.

You mean

 _Please come help._

I think

it's starting to hurt again.

* * *

My sister is stronger than a hurricane

but sometimes I think maybe

she'll blow away with the wind.

I love her when she holds me up in gentle arms

with firm hands and tells me to stop falling

because she won't pick me up again.

I love her when she tells me to let you in

like it really is so easy, so simple, just

because she believes it can be.

 **.**

I don't love her when she whispers to you

after dark, sneaking off the cot on my floor

to your room

where your conversations are secrets in locked chests

I don't hold keys for.

Or when she looks at you like she knows

and she's telling you everything I won't.

 **.**

I don't want her to know.

I don't want you to know.

But when I look back at her I see

she's trying not to fall apart

by my side.

 **.**

I know what you say when the lights are off.

I know

you speak of my monsters

like you have any idea what they look like.

I know

you speak of my demons

like you have any idea where their claws are.

I know

you tell her you're worried and you're scared

and I know

she says the same.

I know

you do it because you love me,

but it doesn't feel like it.

 **.**

I wish you would both just tell me instead.

I wish

you asked after my monsters

so I could tell you how they're great winged beasts with talons

clinging to the cages and rattling the bars

flapping leather wings to blow away my sense

of safety.

I wish

you asked after my demons

so I could tell you how they're digging holes into my lungs

and ripping out both my breaths and my words

leaving me choking on a silence

that's starting to drown me.

I wish you asked me what was wrong

so I could tell you the poisoned black water is heavy

and I don't remember how

to swim.

 **.**

My sister is stronger than a hurricane

and I will blow away with the wind.

I hate it when she comes to visit

because she is made of faerie dust and feathers

and just a dash of iron bone

and I am made of gnarled lightning and monsters

and the blood on the concrete I can't wash away.

I hate it when she comes to remind me

of dead horses and still oceans and empty galaxies

because at least when I'm looking at you

you remind me it's okay

to have lost them.

* * *

My brother is a mangled wolf with one eye

ripping everything to shreds,

blood caked all down its fur.

He is a frightened lion cub

terrified of the whole wide world.

I love him when he grabs my arm and hoists me up

and tells me to get a grip

because he's already gotten his.

I love him when he tells me he doesn't understand you.

Like your glitter, your pride

is the most confusing thing about my life.

 **.**

I don't love him when he looks at me like that,

like one eye is enough to see the gouges

in my lungs.

Or when his hands are cages like the ivory

twisting across my skin as he demands things

I do not know how to give.

I don't love him when his eyes are golden fire burning

through the blood caked across my skin and seeing

the demons and the monsters and every word

I can't say out loud.

 **.**

I know what he thinks when he looks at me sometimes.

I know

he thinks I'm folding in on myself

like I'm a hand of cards with no chance at a flush.

I know

he thinks I'm trying to fake strength I don't have

like I'm the magician who pretends magic to crowds of believers.

I know

he thinks it because he's worried,

but it doesn't feel like it.

 **.**

I wish he would just tell me all his thoughts instead.

I wish

he questioned my folding

so I could tell him there's nothing to fold in on because I

am empty and lost and cold and it hurts

and I think maybe I'm going to die like this.

I wish

he questioned my fake strength

so I could tell him I'm not alive enough to pretend

and really there's just devils dancing in my lungs

and cages between the monsters and the world.

I wish

he questioned everything about me

so I could tell him I think there's nothing left

and I'm scared you're going to go searching one day

and realize you can't love

a ghost.

 **.**

My brother is a mangled wolf and a lion cub and

I hate it when he comes to visit

because he is everything

and I am nothing

and I am terrified

you're going to see the chasms

I am folding into.

* * *

 _It wasn't my fault._

I can tell myself this, now.

I can believe this, now.

* * *

It is dark

 _(It's always dark.)_

and the sky is solid midnight dreams.

You look at me with eyes like the river;

steady, uncertain, wearing grooves into the rock it crashes against.

I keep my oceans faced away,

not wanting them to merge this time,

but still I know the galaxies of conversations

have returned.

I want to say your name like a cure,

but I know that's something it'll never be.

I want you to say mine like a promise,

but I'm scared it'll be one you keep.

 **.**

It is quiet

 _(It's always quiet.)_

and the space between us is fractured white,

stretching off into infinity.

There's a part of me that wants to tear it all to shreds

and another that wants to shrink like faded paper.

It's a war

I don't want to fight.

 _(I don't want to_ _ **fight**_ _.)_

So instead I keep my eyes turned away and I bite my lip and I try

not to think of everything you want me to.

I try not to think of loving you

of hating myself

of monsters and demons

of blood on concrete

of red pen and lightning

of wolves and hurricanes

of horses and cliffs.

 **.**

" _Please,"_ you beg

and it's more than just a word.

 _(It's always more.)_

My throat is a trap door

and I'm not sure I want to find the latch.

I swallow down the words banging at the metal

and remind myself it's better you don't know.

I don't think

you would look at me the same

if you knew.

 **.**

" _Just tell me what's going on."_

It's innocent,

pleading,

like you are not twisting a knife of guilt into my gut

every time you ask.

The moon wanes a little more

 _(It's dying.)_

and I wish I were disappearing with it.

 **.**

I laugh.

The sound is charcoal in your teeth and mud on your shoes

and I watch your expression

drop with it.

I almost laugh again,

but I think better of it when I see how close

you are to crying out all the water

in your body.

 **.**

" _There's nothing going on,"_ I say.

It's not a lie.

There is a thing that happened

and a thing that repeats

but there is nothing that continues

at all times.

 **.**

" _Stop lying to me!"_

Angry.

 _(I don't like angry.)_

You've never been so angry.

I want to be scared of the volcanoes in your eyes

but I think I've already turned

to stone.

 **.**

" _I'm not,"_ I say.

It's not a lie, either.

There are things I don't tell you

and things I avoid,

but I have never really lied to you.

 **.**

My name like a curse tumbling to the ground,

you glare steel daggers at my head

and I almost manage to dodge them all,

but one wedges deep into my throat and suddenly

all the words have an opening to escape.

 **.**

I am crying

and you are crying

 _(The whole world is crying.)_

and I have never said the _R_ word before

but I know now it's made

of nails on chalkboard, gnashing teeth, screaming children.

I hate the way you're looking at me,

wide-eyed like the world has teleported out from under you

and crashed down on your head.

I hate the way you seem so scared to move,

like I'm some fragile broken thing you don't want to startle.

 **.**

I am not broken.

 _(Please don't think that.)_

I am not in need of fixing.

 _(Not by anyone but me.)_

I don't want you to look at me

and see hands and blood and damaged goods

because I did not _break_ ,

 **I survived**.

And maybe I don't want you to think that, either,

because I don't want you to think that means

I am suddenly someone I am not.

 **.**

And I don't think I'm ever going to forgive you

if you keep treating me

like glass.

 _(I am an iron sword.)_

* * *

Do not tell me you love me.

 _(Like that makes everything okay.)_

Do not tell me I am still beautiful.

 _(Like I'm not supposed to be.)_

Do not tell me I am going to be okay.

 _(Like I need the reassurance.)_

Do not tell me how strong I am.

 _(I already know.)_


End file.
